What We've Learned From This Campaign

I’ve learned a whole bunch of new things recently.  Let’s see —

We’ve learned that if Romney — a guy who ran a successful Olympics — says it’s “disconcerting” that there are reports the security company has lost control, and that the ticketing isn’t working, and that there are going to be strikes to disrupt the games — even when the London papers have been reporting the problems with security, tickets, and strikes — that’s a gaffe.

And that Obama has been to Israel over and over again as President, although no one remembers him going.

And that when Obama says “you didn’t build that” on tape, it’s out of context, even though looking more closely at what he said seems to just reinforce his point.  And besides, when he said it, he was affecting a black dialect, so noticing what he said is racist.

And when Romney goes to Poland — that’s racist. And when Romney speaks at the NAACP — that’s racist.  And when Romney points out that the differences between the Palestinian kleptocracy — which is stealing its own people blind while siphoning off literal billions of dollars in aid, while its people live in squalor — and the Israelis, with whom they live cheek-to-jowl on the same chunk of desert, but who are rich, have an expanding economy, a vital, working democracy, and beautiful cities filled with beautiful people — is primarily cultural, that’s racist.

And white people shouldn’t think they can vote against Obama, without that being racist.

And referring to the “Anglo-Saxon” heritage from which we draw our language, our common law, our and even our names for farm animals as opposed to their meats, is racist.

And interrupting Obama during a press event is unacceptable, but  reporters shouting questions during a solemn ceremony at a foreign memorial to victims of the Nazis is perfectly ordinary, and objecting to it is horribly impolite at best, and, yes, a gaffe.

You know, I think I’m seeing a pattern here.